Lyon's Gift (12 page)

“
We both know our Meggie... she’ll
turn up on the doorstep, I’m certain. If not on her own,” he said
with a faint smile, “then whoever has taken her will dump her there
directly—wicked tongue and all!”

Alison gave a reluctant chuckle. Och, but it was
true; Meghan certainly spoke her mind well enough.

“
That’s it, now,” Leith crooned.
“Wipe the tears from your eyes, lass. We must work together in
this.”

Alison did as he bade her and stopped weeping. She
peered up at him, sniffling. He was right, she knew. And she had to
be strong. For Meghan’s sake.

“
Now,” he proposed, “why don’t you
tell me everything, lass... start from the beginning...”

CHAPTER 10

“
Get off the horse,
wench.”

“
Nay!” Meghan replied. “I’ll not.
You cannot tell me what to do!”

He stood before her with his hands upon his hips,
looking at her much as though she were a wayward child he’d like to
toss over his knee and spank. To his credit, he did no such brutish
thing. He merely raised a brow at her.

“
We had a bargain, do you not
recall?”

Meghan shook her head. “
You
perhaps had a
bargain,” she reminded him. “I merely suggested it would be a pity
for everyone to see you carry me in against my will.”

Meghan was well aware that they were drawing an
audience, but she didn’t care. Let them all watch. They should see
that their new lord was naught more than a ruthless Sassenach
barbarian.

“
Have it your way,” he said, and
reached out to pluck her off the horse. Meghan squealed in
surprise, and she expected him to toss her over his shoulder, but
he surprised her by cradling her within his arms like a wee bairn.
It flustered her so much that she forgot to scream.

“
What are you doing?” She scowled
up at him.

“
What does it seem I am doing? I’m
carrying you over the threshold.” He had the audacity to wink at
her. “A loving husband and his blushing bride.”

Meghan glared up at him. So much for her plan to
show him for the barbarian he was. “You’re not my loving husband,”
she assured. “Nor I your blushing bride!”

He lifted her up to whisper into her ear, his breath
warm and sweet against her face. It sent gooseflesh down her arms
and legs. “Perhaps not, wench, but that’s what my people see.” He
drew away and grinned down at her and Meghan suddenly ceased to
breathe.

She couldn’t find her thoughts suddenly, so
discomposed was she by the intimacy of his embrace... his
whisper... his tone...

Good lord, what was happening to her? Her body was
reacting curiously, quickening, and her heart pounded against her
ribs.

He seemed to realize what having his arms around her
did to her, because his eyes were twinkling. “Go ahead and scream
if you like,” he dared her.

The rat—he’d understood her intent, and had thwarted
her so easily. Meghan wished she could scream. But truth to tell,
she couldn’t. She could only stare at his lips, vaguely aware that
he bore her through the courtyard past the prying eyes of his
people and over the threshold of his door. He carried her up the
stairs then, and into his chamber. There he dumped her
unceremoniously upon the bed and walked away.

The cad! He intended, she surmised, to remind her of
her place. Well, she hadn’t wed him as yet, and neither was she
going to! Let him think so, if it pleased him. Her brothers would
come for her soon enough, and then she’d have the last word. Rotten
misbegotten knave! Until then, she was perfectly content to play
his little game.

“
You cannot simply lock me away,
you know,” Meghan announced, before he could close the door behind
him.

He stopped and turned to peer within. “Of course I
can,” he replied and smiled coolly at her.

If the truth be known, his arrogance both infuriated
and intrigued her. How could that be so?

He grinned. “Watch me.”

Meghan wasn’t certain whether to be angry or amused
by his response. No one had ever been so impervious to her. It
seemed no matter what she said, or what she did, he would do as he
pleased with a smile on his face. She was certainly accustomed to
despotic men, but somehow Lyon Montgomerie was different. It was
more than evident in the way he looked at her and in his
actions—that he certainly was not indifferent to her appearance.
Unlike other men, though, he was not reduced to babbling when he
spoke to her. Nor did he seem particularly inclined to oblige her
every whim. To the contrary, she’d never met a man who seemed so
little concerned with her opinion of him. In fact, he didn’t seem
to care whether she approved of him or not. And more, he seemed
amused by her apparent disregard of him.

The two of them seemed, in truth, to be engaged in
some strange battle of wills and wits, and Meghan, for one, didn’t
intend to lose.

He turned once more to go, and Meghan said quite
deliberately, “If you’re not going to stay and abuse me... would
you mind terribly sending in my grandmother to keep me
company?”

If Meghan had hoped for a reaction from him, she’d
hoped in vain, because he simply smiled tolerantly and said without
hesitation, “Of course. I shall send her up directly.”

Meghan smiled sweetly at him. “Thank you.” She
batted her lashes coyly.

“
You never cease, do
you?”

Meghan’s brows lifted. “Whatever do you mean? I’ve
no notion what you’re speakin’ of.”

“
Of course you do… I can see it in
your eyes, wench. You know precisely what it is you are doing, and
it’s not going to work.”

“
What’s not going to work?” Meghan
asked in her most innocent tone. “I’ve no idea what you’re
referring to. ’Tis merely the least you can do. If you’re going to
keep us both prisoners here, you might as well be kind enough to
let us serve our gaol time together.”

“
Prisoners?” He lifted a brow. “Do
not think of yourself so,” he bade her. “You’ve my word you shall
be given all due respect as my wife.”

Meghan cocked her head at him, giving him her most
willful glance. “I do not remember agreeing to such a thing,
Sassenach. Though if it pleases you to think so... have yourself a
merry time with the notion. You can go now,” she said dismissively.
And with a sigh, she laid back upon the bed, stretching out upon it
as though it were her own and his presence of little
consequence.

Lyon watched her make herself at home upon his bed,
and experienced an immediate reaction to the sight of her lying
there. She lounged upon it as though she had nary a care in the
world... as though she were a sated mistress waiting for the return
of her lover.

His mouth went dry, and though he’d planned to go,
to prepare messages to send to David and Dougal MacLean, he
suddenly didn’t wish to leave.

Most particularly because she seemed to wish him to
go.

Or did she?

He closed the door and smiled when her head popped
up at once to peer at him. Her surprised expression at finding him
still present shifted at once to that already familiar expression
of bored disdain she had perfected so well. Their gazes locked and
held as he approached the bed. The room went completely silent but
for the sound of his own footfalls across the creaky wooden
floor.

“
I shall tell you what pleases me,
wench,” he said, leaning over her and pinning her to the bed
between his arms. Her small gasp of surprise pleased him
immensely.

“
What?” She blinked, but held his
gaze.

Lyon could see the question in her eyes. She wasn’t
so dauntless as she would like to have him believe. And yet she
faced him squarely, her delicate chin lifting in challenge—tilted
at a perfect angle so as to meet his lips... did he but lower his
mouth to hers.

And Christ, what lips she was blessed with... full
and pouty, perfectly shaped... He imagined them to be soft and
luscious... imagined them wrapped about him in the most wicked
way.

Her breast lifted with another soft gasp, and his
gaze fell to her full bosom, lingering for an instant before
returning to her face. It was all he could do not to bend for a
taste of those sweet luscious lips. The scent of her rose to taunt
him... that sweet elusive scent of her that awakened his body’s
hunger in a way no woman had in much too long a time.

“
Seeing you here upon my bed,” he
whispered. “That pleases me.”

She moaned softly in answer, and he could see that
her own reaction shocked her, for it registered there upon her face
with a startled blink.

God, he wanted her.

And yet he wanted her willing.

He wanted more than her body.

He wanted her to lie beneath him and call out his
name in pleasure in the dark of night... and to think of him the
first instant her long lashes lifted from sleep in the morn. He
wanted to see the longing in her deep-green eyes, and the yearning
in her body in the taut peaks of her breast—he wanted to feel them
harden beneath the palm of his hand. He wanted her to moan with
pleasure when his hands covered her breasts and wanted her to cry
out when his mouth replaced his hands.

He wanted to initiate her into every wicked pleasure
he had ever indulged in...

And more.

She did that to him somehow... this woman whose name
he did not even know. This woman who looked at him askance, and
pretended an indifference she couldn’t possibly feel with that look
she now wore in those beautiful eyes: a look of pure virgin
innocence mingled with uninhibited curiosity. He sensed she hid a
passion as deep as his own.

God help him, if it was the last thing he did... he
was going to seduce her into his bed. And he was going to employ
every device he knew to keep her there.

He was going to woo his way into her heart.

And he was going to bind her to him for always.

That he vowed as he stared down at her lovely face,
flushed now with color.

He moved closer, savoring the heat between their
bodies, hovering above her mouth, until the warmth of her breath
teased his lips.

Meghan held her breath as he stared down at her.

Never in her life had she been kissed by a man—never
had she desired it.

And yet... somehow she could suddenly think of
little else but the way his lips would feel upon her own. She
swallowed convulsively.

Poised above her as he was, with his beautiful lips
so near her own, and his vivid blue eyes locked with hers, Meghan
felt utterly dizzy.

That look he wore... she wasn’t so naive that she
didn’t comprehend what it meant. She’d seen Colin gaze that way at
his women much too oft to mistake it.

“
You’re just like all the rest,”
she murmured huskily.

He shook his head and was so near that Meghan
imagined she felt the brush of his lips.

Or had it been real?

“
Nay,” he assured her. “I am not,
wench, and do not make the mistake of thinking so.” His eyes
gleamed wickedly, and Meghan immediately sensed that perhaps he
spoke the truth. Perhaps, as with the others, her face had caught
his eye, but his response to her was anything but
familiar.

“
You cannot force me to wed with
you,” Meghan said a little breathlessly. “And I will not. You
cannot make me.”

Was she trying so hard to convince him?

Or herself?

“
Quite true,” he agreed, smiling.
“I cannot force you. But you will.”

Meghan narrowed her eyes at him. “Dinna be so
certain of yourself. I’m not some foolish lass who sighs after
every handsome lad. You will not win me with flattery.”

His smile deepened. “You think me handsome, do
you?”

Meghan’s face burned. “I didna say such a thing!
Dinna put words in my mouth, Sassenach!” But she was surely
thinking it. Never in her life had a face appealed to her more. It
was the face of a man, not that of a boy. And yet Meghan could very
much spy the deviltry of his youth in his every expression. He was
a man who relished his pleasures... and it was obvious to Meghan
that his pleasure at the moment was her.

“
I would not dare put words in
your mouth,” he assured her.

Never in her life had a man looked at her so. It was
not solely the hunger so apparent in his eyes, or the intent
written in the expression upon his face... Nay, there was something
more...

“
Not when there is something else
I’d so much rather do with that lovely mouth of yours.”

Meghan shivered at the silky tone of his voice.

He was a man who knew what he wanted and was used to
getting it, she realized.

“
Do you not know what those lips
do to a man?”

Meghan shook her head, blinking. Was he going to
kiss her now? It seemed to her that he meant to, for his eyes
slitted and he tilted his face, as though to lock his mouth with
hers.

She held her breath in anticipation.

Would she let him?

Should she?

“
One day,” he vowed, “you will ask
me to love you.”

“
Nay—”

“
Shhh...”

His breath blew warm and sweet upon her lips. Meghan
closed her eyes for an instant, letting the sensation brush over
her. Good lord, but she felt defenseless against this form of
seduction. She knew how to deal with men who leered, men who vowed
their love after first setting eyes upon her, and overeager beaus,
but she didn’t know how to deal with this man at all—nor with the
strange way he seemed to speak to her body. It answered to him like
a slave to its master... no matter that her head and heart both
said nay.